The Friesen's

I flew out on a SAMAir flight with Ken Swift who recently finished the New Testament translation in a language related to Ashaninca. It was a great encouragement to the translators to have a translation consultant that understood their language structure.

In the morning we did checking for accuracy and clarity and in the afternoon Dwight taught a basic translation methods course for the 10 of us present. The group in training included Bonifacion from the community of Shevoja on the Tambo River who is a seminary graduate. Benito Lopez, the Church Association President and his wife Marcia are from Aoti on the Perene River but live at the Ashaninca center where we worked. Marcia was quite sharp and I would kid Benito that we didn't need him any more.

The translator would read a small portion in his language and the group would listen with Bibles closed, and then repeat back in Spanish what they understood. If they got hung up on a part, they would open their Bibles and discuss it among themselves. One person would follow the Spanish text and Rafael or Alfredo would sit at the computer that has the Paratext program and be following in several Spanish versions.

In this way we got through 11 chapters of 1 Samuel and 1 of Isaiah. We spent more than two mornings on Isaiah 1:1 alone. Things we can easily say concisely in English and Spanish can be very difficult to say concisely in Ashaninca.

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Face Of Missions